Today, I’m sharing a scene from my naughty fairy tale, Into The Darkness. You’ve never met a witch like Celeste. She’s straight outta the bayou and can curse you just as quickly as she could hug you. She has a heart of gold that will turn black if you cross her. Prepare yourself for the wicked witch of the South.

Once Upon A Time…

There lived a witch by the name of Celeste Dubois, who was tired of her sister witches disturbing her eternal slumber with their cries. Lately, they all called out to her with the same plea, ‘stop Rip Van Warren, the witch hunter’. Unable to ignore their cries, she lures Rip into her world, where she keeps him as her prisoner for twenty years. She had every intention of torturing him for those twenty years. But the heart wants what the heart wants.

For twenty years Rip Van Warren is held captive by a beautiful bayou witch. He should hate her. However, their time together has made him rethink his vendetta against witches. All of his life he thought magic was evil. Celeste has taught him that it’s a gift to be treasured, almost as much as he treasures her.

When an unexpected threat enters their lives, Celeste is forced to send him back to his own world in order to protect him. He awakens in the middle of the swamp, confused and dazed. His memories of the last twenty years are foggy. Yet, there’s one person he’ll never forget, the witch he left behind. He’s desperately seeking a way back to her. However, the witches of New Orleans aren’t willing to help a famous witch hunter.

Will the dark witch and the dark hunter have their happily ever after?
Or will he return too late to save the witch he loves?

Rip stared around Patsy to find Celeste heading in his direction. Her curves were clad in a long dark green dress that was sleeveless. She wore no head covering today. Her long black hair fell over one shoulder.

Rip mustered up every ounce of hate he could for her. It still wasn’t enough to fill a teaspoon. What was it about this witch that called to him: his mind and his body? Celeste smiled at Patsy when she reached her side.

The older woman bowed then turn and walked down the hallway, same direction Andre and Kalina had gone. Rip stared at Celeste. She stared back at him. Awkward silence surrounded them for a few moments before Rip decided to speak up.

“Are you here to apologize?”

Celeste frowned. Even that looked good on her.
“Apologize? For what?”

“The interrogation room. For slamming my head into the table while I was cuffed to it. For sending me into a coma.”

Her frowned deepened. “You’re a prisoner. How did you expect to be treated?”

Not like a fucking punching bag. Rip opened his mouth to say just that.

She raised her hand before he could speak. “Don’t answer that.” Looking down at the floor, she massaged her forehead and sighed. “Let’s start over. Okay?” When she raised her eyes to him, she wore a slight smile on her face.

His heart fluttered. He was a man. His heart wasn’t supposed to be fluttering. What the hell was wrong with him?

“I’m sorry, Rip, for what I did to you.”

He forgot all about fluttering hearts. She’d apologized. His eyes narrowed. She
was up to something.

“I went too far. I was wrong. But my heart was in the right place. You have a family. You have people you care for. If something was to happen to them, you would do whatever you had to in order to fix it, right?”
When she said it like that, it sort of made sense. But she was a witch.

“Yeah, I’ll do anything for my family.”

“The bayou witches are my family. It’s my duty to protect them.”

“Those dark witches were killing innocents.”

Celeste nodded. “I know. And they had to be stopped. But killing them wasn’t the answer.”

“Should I have talked to them instead, tried to reason with them? Witches aren’t very reasonable.”

“No, I don’t suggest you reason with them. I suggest you stay away from them, period. We handle our own. We don’t need witch hunters interfering.”

“Okay.” Rip shoved his hands into his pockets. “What would you have done to stop those witches? Mind you, they were making voodoo dolls of local officials whose policies they didn’t agree with. They were also threatening a local business owner and her brother. They were putting dead animals on her doorstep and sending her threatening letters, telling her she would be next.”

“They were what?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? But you’re the witch queen. How could you not know what your flock was doing?”

She clasped her hands together and tilted her chin up. “What they were doing doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your place to interfere.”

“Those officials have families. Like you, they have a right to come home to those families. They have a right to live…”

“Witches do too.”

“Which is why I didn’t kill the ones who weren’t a threat to society.”

“But you took their power.”

“Only to prevent them from becoming a threat in the future.”

“That’s the point. You don’t have a right to change someone else’s future. You are not God.”

“I…” Rip snapped his lips shut. No, he wasn’t God. “I help people.”

“You also hurt people.”

“I guess you’re a saint.”

“No, far from it. I know my flaws. I’m working on them. But I don’t kill. I don’t have the right to end another person’s life.”

Witches weren’t people. They were abominations. They were a disease that needed to be eradicated. His family had suffered for generations, were still suffering, because of a witch.

“However,” Celeste told him. “Neither one of us will change our views any time soon. So, I suppose we call a truce.”

“A truce?”

“Yes.”

“How will this truce work?”

“I will refrain from torturing you. And you will…”

“Be released immediately?”

“You will talk to me about your life.”

“What?” Rip chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”

“I never joke,” she told him with a straight face.

“Must be a boring life you lead here.”

Her frown returned. He must’ve hit a soft spot.
“Do you agree?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You can say no.”

“Then what happens?”

“You spend the next few years in the dungeon.”

Having a bedroom upstairs would be nice. However, he didn’t trust her. And he didn’t negotiate with witches. Soon, his family would realize he was missing and began looking for him. His brothers were resourceful. They would figure out a way to free him. He just had to be patient.

“I choose the dungeon.” He smiled at the shocked look on her face.

“Are you serious?”

“I never joke,” he repeated her words from earlier.

Her eyes turned black. Sh*t.

“Fine,” she said in that deep voice she got whenever she started to look possessed. “Follow me.” She turned and walked away.

His feet began to move. Not because he told them to, but because she was controlling him, again. He would get free one day and when he did, he would show her how it felt to be controlled by another. They stopped when they reached the end of the hall. Kalina stood with her hands on her hips.

“Celeste!”

“He wants to be in the dungeon,” Celeste told her.

Kalina looked at him. “Is that true?”

“No. I want to leave this sh*t hole and…”

“Silence,” Celeste yelled.

His lips snapped shut. He was lucky his teeth didn’t crack.

“Being kind won’t work on him,” Celeste told her cousin.

“I see that now. But, torturing him is not the answer.”

“I’m not going to hurt him. He’ll remain in the dungeon at night and work in the forest during the day. That will be his punishment. He’ll get days off his sentence if he shares information that I need.”